Photo Diary: September 2014

Absolut Thursdays at Oasis!

coffee time is the best time

asian breakfast tingz

sunset walks in the park :)

Post exam sushi

the best

Best brunch after a night of shenanigans

unintentional matching with these ones

sushi and gin&tonics? not not down.

JDRF Ride for Diabetes Research

Happy to be a part of such a great initiative and am very proud to say that as a company, we raised $15,000 for the cause! :)

Congratulations to my beautiful cousin Connie and her husband Carlo!

Just the most gorgeous venue at Malaparte in the TIFF Bell Lightbox

And so happy to meet my baby nephew from Cali, Joseph! The cutest little bebe #obsessed

Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. I haven't seen this one since dropping her off at university (a month!!!) and I actually missed her. Can't wait for her to come back home again for Thanksgiving!

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the Fall."

It's All GRK

It's All GRK has been on my list of places to visit for quite a while now.

When V told me she really liked it, I made her go again with me :)

I thought it was more of a 'restaurant-y' type kind of place, but a lot of people just order food to go.

When you walk in, you order from the counter and then sit down.

They do not have a lot on the menu but they'll definitely have something you want.

Anyways, so I ordered the Chicken Village GRK Salad, which included tomato, cucumbers, green peppers, red onions, olives, topped off with a slab of GRK feta and house dressing.

V ordered a Beefteki Gyro, which included tzatziki, tomato, red onion, and fries wrapped in a pita.

I was very satisfied with what I ordered as the chicken was really good (very seasoned and moist!). I was also super stuffed by my salad, which doesn't happen very often. I even tried some of the feta :O (I normally don't eat cheese) and it was...not good LOL but I had it for the experience :P
I will definitely come back and order something else off the delicious menu.

It's All GRK has two locations in Toronto - one in Bellwoods (this one, on Queen Street West) and the other one is located in the Annex (around Bloor and Spadina).
If you love Greek food, this place is definitely worth a visit!



Afterwards, we headed over to Food Palace Gelato to finish up our food adventure of the day :) it's not a full meal without dessert!

My Fall Favorites

What are some of your fall favorites?

Guu Izakaya

Guu is one of the most popular izakayas in Toronto, and this isn't my first time here. But I made sure to try dishes I've never had before.

First up was the Salmon Natto Yukke, which consists of chopped salmon sashimi with "7 friends" namely natto, takuan, shibazuke, scallion, cucumber, garlic chips, and a raw egg yolk.

Your server will help you mix all the ingredients together until it looks like this slimy little glob.

You're given pieces of seaweed and you just wrap it up like this and eat it!

This was definitely a very interesting dish. I've never eaten a raw egg yolk before and I was not particularly fond of the texture as it was super slimy.

Next we ordered the Kinoko Bibimbap, which is rice and mushrooms with seaweed sauce in a sizzling stone bowl (without cheese).

This was so delicious! We opted out of the cheese and could not imagine how it would taste like with cheese. I think we made a wise decision to not add in the cheese.

Okonomiyaki is a deep fried Japanese pancake with squid, tonkatsu sauce, and karashi mayo.

This dish was my favourite dish of the night. It tastes exactly like the description and the sauces were a great compliment to the dish. I would order this again!

One of their daily specials: the Spicy Pork Belly.
I love pork belly but the sauce was really heavy so I was very glad we ordered the bibimbap as I paired the two together when eating it. I also took some of the lettuce they gave to wrap the pork belly (like the Koreans...) and that was delicious!

Can't wait to come back for some more dishes!

You'll Need Other People

You'll need coffee shops.

And sunsets and road trips,

Airplanes and passports,

New songs and old songs,

But people more than anything else.

You will need other people,

And you will need to be that other person to someone else - a living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe in better things.

Food Palace Gelato

To be completely honest, I found this gelato place by googling "gelato on queen west" and would not have otherwise have visited. Since it's located a bit off of Queen West, north on Bathurst, I was not surprised when it was completely empty on a Sunday night.

Left: Cappuccino and Right: Chocolate Chili

The cappuccino flavour was good (nothing exceptional though). It did its job of satisfied my craving of gelato. As for the Chocolate Chili, I've never had spicy ice cream before! It tasted like normal chocolate at first, and then the kick at the end is like woah.